St Brigid’s Cross

Today is the day when the festival of Imbolc is traditionally celebrated.  This Gaelic festival marking the first stirring of Spring has long been associated with the goddess Brighid, who became Christianised at St Bride or Brigid, and the festival is known in the Christian calendar as Candelmas.  The alchemy of Imbolc represents a time of purification and renewal in the wheel of the year.  It is the time of the year when Nature is ‘cleaning up’, ready for a new cycle of growth in the spring.  At this time of the year we see the last of the Autumn debris of leaves and cast-off branches, the old, rotted fruit that was not destined for new growth or animal food has been washed away by the rain and snow.

Imbolc by Jennifer Galasso – www.magickal-art.com

So as we learn from nature and respond to her rhythms and cycles, this is a time when we ourselves can be spring-cleaning our own minds and clearing out the deadwood from our lives so that we can receive the divine spark of new life, the creative fire that will burst forth onto the scene at the Spring Equinox in March.  Imbolc is often associated with nature’s quickening pulse, the first stirrings of life.  The celtic word Imbolc actually means “in the belly” and originally referred to lambing process, the lambs stirring with their own quickening impulse for life in the belly of the ewe.  There is a quickening too in the shift of light and dark and the light now grows visibly stronger every day, with the days getting longer at an appreciably increasing rate, as we make our passage from winter into spring.

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